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Part 2 of a three-issue series on agriculture. From roughly 1970 through 1985, the beef industry put money and research into improving productivity instead of learning the marketing techniques that would have addressed America's changing eating habits -- and now it's in trouble.

Despite pleadings to the contrary by federal appraisers, the Nevada district director for the Bureau of Land Management and his superiors in Washington, D.C., have approved a controversial sale of public land.

After a year of negotiation between cattle growers, nine national conservation organizations and congressional aides, no compromise was reached on the controversial issue of fees for livestock grazing on public land.